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GOLD CREEK / WISHERD RIDGE / BELMONT

CATSLEDMAN1

Well-known member
Premium Member
12/14 FIRST RIDE TO THE AREA

Like much of the West looks pretty low on snow. Gold creek has really no snow down low, normal parking at gravel pit has 6" and bare south facing slope and timbered areas. When you drive the Mineral Mt road, icy as all get out with 8" of snow on the road and bare south facing timbered slopes down low, then as you hit the start of USFS and the road switchbacks, enough snow to unload the sled, but some dweeb drove his wooped up 4 wheel drive all the way to the sign at the 513 trail head / two track over to Shoo Fly meadows, so nasty ride.

However from Shoo Fly to the look out good coverage, slow boondocking ok, gate not covered below the lookout but only lacking 8" or so of doing that. I would say close to 4ft or better at the slopes at the lookout cause the rock slides etc are well covered.
So the big meadow is as good as it gets, lots of snow to zoom around, just getting there is a challenge. Crusty snow up to 513 trail, then pretty nice but very firmed up snow, only powder up around the lookout.

dan bikes shofly headon 12 14.jpg dan mike sno bikes 513 12 14.jpg
 
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12 26 14

You can ride your sled up the Mineral Mtn road from the Gold Creek road, good coverage. the old pickup tracks that had the road hacked up two week ago are basically gone, good to go. Actually pretty deep powder as you climb up the Mineral mtn road to the trail head/road over to Shoo Fly meadows.

lots of new snow up high , as in shoo fly meadows up to Mineral lookoutm rode down cliffs trail into the west fork, skimpy down in that area, road riding all good, up around the cabin back into good snow, just need more dumps to make off road riding.

we dropped into the westfork, need another good storm for off road ride n, burnt over area new trees get taller every year, take another 2' additional to cover them all

you can drive to Mineral Mtn road then sled from there, but as it snows you have to be careful that you don't get stuck turning your trailer around. Plowed up to Minereral Mtn turn right now, beyond that I would'nd tow much.

ktm 12 26 snow in shoofly.jpg yam 12 26 shoofly snow.jpg west fork road bike track 12 26.jpg west fork 12 26.jpg
 
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Jan ride

Drive to end of plowed road on the main Gold Creek road, then ride no problem.

Sled / skiers heading to Wisherd Ridge / Sheep mtn leaving from Hiway 200.

Go high and 18" plus of new fluff, just road ride to get there.
 
yup more snow

the area picked up quite a bit of snow this last week.......maybe 18" up high, got warm in the West fork and really compacted the new snow, a heck of a base about any where.

you can drive about 4 miles up to end of plowed road and unload a pickup or two place. Dicey now taking a 4 place away from hiway 200. Limited turn around and tough snow if you get of plowed road.

Fog new snow real flat flat light, but I road through some play area up around shoofly high old clear cuts off 513 trail, deep good base, pretty excellent coverage from here on, junk long since covered............well use reason.

Riders that headed to Bowles Meadow and looping through Cow creek headed towards Seely reported good coverage, just a lot of the old clear cuts now have 20' tall trees so some big areas are really lost to ride. The burn area from 2000/2004 are looking pretty good, good coverage.

New warming hut in the Bowles meadow area thanks to Seely club I hear. Any one want to post a map of that or pictures and directions.
 
warm and high

road some of the Garnet Range instead of Gold creek, just to remind ourselves how funky/worthless/really crappy snow can be. Hard crust........all sugar underneath, then rain on Sunday. Always seems to be this way

Accross the road in Gold creek / Seeley Lake area, warm off and on all week, lots of crust, but not the bottomless worthless sugar snow underneath. WE GOT BASE.

839.JPG bikes 1 25 15 min road.jpg
 
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wow its warm

Gold creek road that was a sheet of ice got soft by Sunday afternoon. So until things freeze up, not dangerous slick like it was.

But talk about tough snow this weekend............wow. Rode some areas in the Ovando country, 10" of fresh that got rained on, man thats tough. Just a few sleds out and most headed home to get out of the rain.

Sunny Sunday morning and about 50degrees when we stepped out of the truck at 10:30 into bright sun...........spooky warm for late January.

Everything was tough going bikes / sleds/ snowboards, took lots of power to go down near vertical hills and zero steering. Was all good though for the family riders with wiener roast under way, warm sunny...........but stuck sleds.

Lost a lot of snow down low, so lots of base when this cools off.

threw in some gold creek pictures for better looking

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souper bowl sun day

hard at a rock, well down low concrete and crusty up high. But then on a couple of N facing slopes up high a couple of inches of old on soft crust, kinda fun.

Clear skies when I got up, but over cast by the time we were riding, started snowing about 11 am, was still snowing when we left to watch the game.
We need the snow so another week of snow would be all good.

min road 1 25 15.jpg bikes gold creek rd 1 10 1t5.jpg
 
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hi moisture con tent

so it rained all week. and was warm all week. its was all weak.

but it was sunny on sunday so we had to take a look.

Korn snow where we parked, korn snow as we headed up some old packed trails, WOW solid wet right to the ground snow down low. Hey sun was out, so it was all wet snow, some north facing slopes were good. I would say almost a foot of heavy new snow up hi.

So down low RAIN TOOK OUT SNOW PACK, up around 6500 ft and up snow pack is building and building. Lots of white, just not great sledding conditions.

025.jpg 554.JPG bike tracks min ridge 2 9 15.jpg wst fk from shoofly ridge good 2015.jpg trees snow sun wstfk back 2 5 15.jpg dan dans hill distance 2 15.jpg dan on dans hill 2 9 15.jpg
 
march 1

snow finally.............ok a wooping 4 or 5 inches most of the area.

new fuzz, old hard underneath, go anywhere's, so we explored a little, riding very fast beat the heck out of you. But sunny and fairly warms with dry new snow. 1 group out, otherwise nobody around, nada, no tracks.

picture of the swan range from Mineral Mtn lookout...........1ft of new up there all good at 8000 ft.

3  1 15 swan range from min lookout.jpg 3  1 15 swans from min lookout.jpg 3 1 15 dan bikes shoofly.jpg 3 1 15 swam range from min lookout.jpg 3 1 15 w frk play hill tracks.JPG
 
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